Animal Spirits Podcast - This Won't End Well (EP. 464)

Episode Date: May 13, 2026

On episode 464 of Animal Spirits, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ben Carlson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ discuss: Ben's new book Risk & Reward, an epic melt-up in the stock market, semiconductor stocks going berserk, why this isn't a bubble (yet), South Korean stocks, AI portfolios & advisors, why young people are so angry, soccer dads & crypto, longevity risk and more. This episode is sponsored by: Nasdaq Global Index Solutions and Janus Henderson Investors. To learn more about Nasdaq Global Index Solutions and their Blueprint of Tomorrow series visit https://www.nasdaq.com/campaign/global-indexes/blueprint-of-tomorrow/ Visit https://www.janushenderson.com/securitizedmarkets to learn more. Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thecompoundnews.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A Wealth of Common Sense⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Michael Batnick’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Irrelevant Investor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Feel free to shoot us an email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ritholtz Wealth Management⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Janus Henderson Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.  Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal and fluctuation of value. Janus Henderson® and any other trademarks used herein are trademarks of Janus Henderson Group plc or one of its subsidiaries. © Janus Henderson Group plc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is sponsored by NASDAQ global index solutions and their blueprint of tomorrow series. The markets of tomorrow aren't built overnight and neither are the indexes that help investors navigate them. NASDAQ global indexes designs benchmarks across asset classes, sectors, and geographies built to stay in sync with a fast-changing market environment. With NASDAQ global indexes, you can explore how index-based solutions are shaping the modern economy, igniting innovation, unlocking opportunity, and helping build the financial infrastructure. of the future. In today's market uncertainty and revolving credit conditions, the $15 trillion dollar securitized market may provide investors with diversifying income opportunities. As a leading provider in active securitized ETFs, Janice Henderson seeks to demystify a complex yet growing part of the market, offering a range of diversifying exposures across income,

duration and credit quality, whether investors are seeking high quality AAA rated CLOs for lower volatility exposure, higher income diversified across various securized sectors, or perhaps agency MBS exposure as part of their core, Janice Henderson seeks to offer a variety of securitized solutions. Janice Henderson investors investing in a brighter future together. Learn more at Janice Henderson.com slash securitized markets. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss principle and fluctuation of value.

Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, my least favorite thing to do is self-promotion, but I'm going to do it. Okay, which is kind of weird in the content game.

I heard Michael Kitsis at a talk one time say that blogging is marketing for introverts. Oh, that's good. Which is why I think I liked it so much. So I have a new book out today called Risk and Reward. I really, I love the cover. The, I had a really, I had a cover in mind that I wanted. And my publisher wasn't quite getting there. And so I went to Daniel on our production team, one of our creatives.

And I said, Daniel, here's what I want. Do it for me. And he gave it back even better than I thought it would be. And so I really wanted this book to look nice. And so I also went to Chart Kid Matt. And I said, hey, I'm going to have, I think there's over 50 charts and tables in the books. And I said, I wanted to look really good. Help me make it look good.

So he format. He gave me these formatting things. And he said, use these formats and then just input your data in there. So anyway, the book looks good. I'm really happy with that. I think it's the best thing I've ever written. I mean, not to toot my own horn. But, yeah.

So the book is out now. Wait, why do you think that? So your first book was a wealth of common sense. Yeah. Your second book was organizational alpha. Yeah. There's two books I wrote that don't count as books, though. They were self-published little, small things.

Don't fall for it was a real book. Yep. This is, yeah. And I think that one was, I had fun writing that one, but it was like, it wasn't my core competency. You know what I mean? Yeah. This is basically 12 plus years of writing and things. thinking distilled into one book, everything that I've done. So Bill Bernstein once said that there are

there are four things every investor needs to be successful. He said you have to have an interest in the process, you have to have some math horsepower, you have to have a deep understanding of financial history, and you also have to have the behavioral psychology emotional part. And so I wanted to cover all four of those things in the book because that's what I've been writing about for a dozen years now. And that's what it is. And the biggest pushback I've gotten any time I read about the long term is like, what about this and what about that? And did you think about this? That's the whole point, right? Yes, but that's the book. I wanted to, I wanted to just, so I, in the introduction, I said how this book is, you know, you know, in the rap battle at the end of eight mile,

were you an eight mile guy? Huge. When Eminem just does a self-deprecating thing and he says all the bad things about himself. I do live in Triller Park with my mom, all these things. I wanted to put it out there like, okay, these are all the bad things that cannot have happened in the past hundred years. Let's lay it out there. These are the horrible, horrible things that have happened. Here's how you think about them. Here's the context behind them. Here's how you survive them. And here's what they really mean to you as an investor. That's what I wanted to do. So risk and reward. It's a yin and yang. So one chapter is the risk. The next chapter is the reward. It's like the context. It's the charts. It's the data.

It's the thinking behind it. You really can't have one without the other, right? It's like love and marriage. Mm-hmm. So they're attached at the hip. That's right. That's the... All right.

Well, I haven't read it yet, but I am excited to do so. I sent a bunch of copies to the office in New York. Are we doing an audiobook for the reading challenged? I did an audiobook, and I read it myself. You know, it's funny because... So I go into this studio, and first they said, do you want just to have some British guy read it with an accent, and it'll sound nice.

And I said, yeah, just let them. I don't want to do it. And then I thought, then someone said to me, dude, you have a podcast. You should read this. What are you thinking? Yeah, it's good advice. And I said, yeah, that is good advice. So I said, I did it.

So I went to a studio for like a day and a half and read the book. And it was hard, but because you had to get in like this cadence. And I had a guy in my ear from London because my Harriman House is based in London. He was the producer of it. And he kept saying, hey, read this word again. Do this sentence again. Slow down. Speed up, all these things.

And halfway through the book, he goes, I got to, tell you, I'm not a finance person at all. I'm in the publishing industry. And listening to you describe all of these things is very anxiety-inducing. Like all the bad, like the Great Depression and the 1970s and the 87, all this stuff. He's like, it's kind of bringing me anxiety. But I also like the fact that you're like bringing it back home and tying it and creating it around and giving me the context behind it and telling me how to handle these things. So I turned one British guy onto the book at least. Okay. Yeah. So yes, I read the book. It's funny because To read the book, you have to get into like a cadence.

It's like a rhythm. And so I finally figured out the rhythm like halfway through the first day. How does it work? Do you read a chapter at a time or a couple of chapters at a time? Yeah, a chapter, take a little water break, another chapter, lunch break. And then at the end, I finally, I figured out the rhythm. And he said, all right, let's read the first three chapters again because you didn't have it then. How many sessions?

How many different sessions did it take? I was there for probably a day in three quarters, almost two full days. Oh, wow. I've heard some people say that it takes four, I don't know, the book, like I said, there's 50 charts and stuff. The book is 200 pages, essentially. All right, so it's an easy read. It's an easy read. Who's it for? I thought about this. There's, I think there's two types of investors out there. One investor who is, and this was the people in 2010, there was too conservative, and every

single negative drumbeat got to them. And they were investing from the fetal position. This is for them. This is also for the people now who, are the other side of the boat and taking too much risk and thinking like this the good times will never end. Oh, yes, I will. It's for both of those people. And so I think it's, it's a good reminder of both, yeah, that's, this is why I'm so interested in this current cycle because everything in history tells me that these periods of above average returns are going to end in tears. Yeah. It's never happened before we haven't ended in tears. You know what's interesting. I was, I was talking to a friend the other day about the bull market.

And obviously, we are in the business of taking care of people's money. And our lives, our jobs are a lot easier when the wind is at our back, of course. And it's like being sick. When you're sick, all you want to do is be healthy again. And then you get healthy and you totally forget about being sick. I think a bull market is similar. And the opposite is true too. Like when things are good, you don't think about the bad times.

And when we're in the bear market, it seems like the sun. sun is never going to shine again. But you are here to tell people that you can't have the good times without the bad times. Yeah. So the book is a reminder to people on both ends of the spectrum, that it's got to be both ways. And the whole point is you can't get the long-term rewards without taking those short-term, without accepting those short-term risks. That's the thing.

So anyway, take a look now. It's everywhere. Like I said, Kindle, it's a paperback book. I read the audiobook. Harrman House published it. It's at all the places. You know where they are. All right.

Let's get back to the stock market. Congrats on the book, Ben. Also, the other thing my publisher said, one more thing. He was like, listen, whenever this book comes out, it's going to make sense. Because there's always going to be another risk. And it's not going to be like the last risk. But he's like, there's never going to be a bad time for this to come out. Because it looks at both sides of the coin.

The most recent risks have subsided. The, the, uh, the, uh, exhumed. anxiety over the war seems to be behind us. And we were saying on the show, not that we could have foreseen anything like what just happened, but assuming that the war ends and assuming that crude oil doesn't go to 200 and assuming that the earnings momentum keeps going. And these are not like, these are not long side of assumptions, right? It was just, let's just assume things go back to the way they were before the war.

And sure enough, they have. And we've had a hell of a rally. The S&P has gained 16% in six weeks. most since the GFC. And now the new worry, or part of the new worry, is, oh, shit, we're in a meltup. And it's not every stock at all. It sure feels like this is a meltup, doesn't it?

Well, it is a meltup. We are factually melting higher. Is this not the meltup that makes the most sense in history, though? Of any meltup we've ever had, this one makes the most sense. What do you mean by that? I'm going to get into it. I just want to say, one of the things, that people say when they worry about the melt-up stuff

that you're hearing more and more. And it's funny because you hear this every three years in this bull market is, what inning are we in? Oh, I see we're at the part of the cycle where, dot, dot, dot. Right. You know, it's so, and like the people that say this, do they forget that they say this every single time? That's the problem.

I've seen this movie before. I know what it ends. This won't end well. Textbook late cycle behavior. All I want to tell people is if you don't have an open mind yet about this bull market. When are you ever going to have it? There's so many times when it seems like this run is over,

I think you just have to have an open mind. That's the only thing I say. So I had Matt recreate this. I shared this on our Slack Research channel. I created this meltup chart last year, and it shows the Roaring 20s for the Dow. So this is 10-year returns. The Roaring 20s for the Dow were up almost 500%.

Can I, can I just a suggestion? Yeah. This chart, these are not melt-ups. A melt-up, in my opinion, is something that happens over a short time frame, one to three months. This should say measure in bull markets. Because these are the great world markets.

That's not a quibble. I think, but I think every one of these bull markets ended in a meltup. How's that? You can see the end of the lines all just go whoop and they go straight up. Okay, so the 1950s is probably the most underrated, underestimated bull market.

And maybe that's the one that didn't end in tears, really. Because it wasn't until like the 70s where things got bad. So that was up 500% as well. Japan in the 80s was up over. 500% the NASDAQ in the 90s. This is the one we're not even close. Well, kind of close. It was up almost 800% in total.

In that 10 year period. The NASDAQ 100 now, for the past 10 years, is up nearly 650%. Higher than the Dow of the 20s, higher than the S&P in the 50s, higher than Japan in the 80s. And oh boy, this is just, this is an all-time run. It is an all-time run. One question that I would have about this period, I feel like, out of the one, two, out of the five lines on this chart, this is the period

that has the most bare markets, the most 15 plus percent pullbacks, 20 percent plus pullbacks? Yes. Yes. We've had a lot of resets. Yes. Even in the 80s and 90s,

it was only, there was only one 20 percent pullback and it was 1987. There was one in 1990 that was like 90 percent in change. So you're right. In terms of like bare markets, 2022 was a legitimate bare market. 2020 was a legitimate bare market.

2020 was a legitimate crash situation. I agree with that. So I want to talk about this on TCAF a little bit on Friday, but I think you could make the case that will have more of those periods where you have like a one or two month crash than like an extended crash going forward because of the way markets work now. Like we're going to have more bad months, like more gnarly months than we would have like really bad years in terms of like the magnitude of loss.

So we're going to get into some of the stocks driving the meltup. But like, you would have to believe, and Josh and I spoke about this a week or two ago, what are the odds that Micron has a 40% pullback, like a pretty quick 40% pullback over the next year? And I think we pegged it at like 75%. Now, obviously we're pulling that straight out of our butt. Right. But Mike Ron just had one.

Like literally in, so Mike Ron reported the best quarter ever. I don't know if sales were up 10 times. I mean, it was a stupid quarter. They beat whatever it was. Ernie's were up five-ups year over a year. Literally last quarter, they beat. They had an insane report and the stock sold off by 30%. And should not have been the absolute top of the top.

Now, we've seen, we've got another quarter and the numbers are just even more insane. But I repeat, in the first quarter, Micron had a monster, monster beat. And the stock sold off 30%. And that was the stock went from 460 on March 18th down to 320 on March 30th. In 12 days, not even sessions, in like whatever, seven sessions, whatever that is, eight sessions. The stock fell 30% to a low of 420, a 320. Ben, it's now at 800. This was at the end of March.

It was at 320, and now it's at 800. All right. The good news here is that we're not talking about the Mag 7 anymore. We're talking about semiconductors. So this is from bespoke. The market cap of semi-stocks in the SOX index, Sox index, is now 22% of the S&P 500 market cap. It was 6% at the end of April 2025 over a year ago. 6% to 22% in the S&P 500.

Wow. This has to be a historic run. It is. So Sandisk is up 4,000% in the last year. 4,000 percent. Go through all the Micron and Western Digital and all these different names, the SMH ETF is going bananas. Eddie Ardenny has this thing that's saying he calls it the AI11 versus the Mag 7,

and he shows Sandusk and Intel and Western Digital and Micron and all these different, all the South Korean stocks, and they are destroying the Mag 7. So the good news is we don't have to worry about concentration anymore with the meltup, right? that we've moved on from that worry. So that's good news. And you have to talk about the fundamentals.

It's not just that investors are going insane, although if you look at a chart, it sure seems that way. So this is why I said this is the meltup that makes the most sense, because if you look at the fundamentals, they've improved this year on the market. Micron is trading. This sounds hard to believe.

We're talking about how much is Micron up year-to-date? I'll check right now. So Micron is up a year to date, 180%. Yep. Those are baby numbers. Over the last year, Micron's up 800%. 800%. All right.

So is this crazy? Is this a bubble? Does this make sense? Well, you have to look at the fundamentals. Micron is trading at 9.7 times 2026 earnings. 9.7. Sandisk, 11.5. Micron looking at the 2027, the estimates are 7 times earnings and Sandus is 8.4 times earnings. Now, you might say if you're not, if you're just a casual listener, why are these stocks so, I'm using air quote cheap. These are, these memory names are the most

cyclical businesses ever. If you look at charts of their reference, or their margins or whatever, they swing wildly. And investors, rightfully so, we have seen this movie a million times with memory stocks. We're not going to pay up for them. Yeah, these stocks have been around for a long time. These aren't like new flash in the pan stocks. So it's amazing that simultaneously a stock could be up 800 percent and also trade at less than 10 times earnings. And it's because it is being, obviously, and we'll talk about this, it is being driven by an insatiable demand for compute. If you are a clawed user, you might have noticed some slowdown, some limits happening. Dario said they grew, what was the number, 80 times in the last quarter or something?

Like, they cannot handle all of the growth. So is this sustainable? I mean, that's another question, another story. Who knows? I certainly don't know what earnings are of micron are going to be a year, two years out. But the market is sort of discounting it. The market is saying, like, yeah, no, you're trading at 10 times earnings. That makes sense. So a few charts here, these are from duality research. The forward PE for the S&P is at 21 times right now. That's below where it was trading in January 2025. The market is up 30% since then.

Okay? The market has risen 30% and the PE ratio has fallen because earnings are outpacing the market. I was talking to chart about this. I think this makes sense. And he's working on some numbers. Like, you know, we've shared a chart. He's shared a chart, Nvidia has gotten cheaper. If you just look at the forward PE,

Okay, this is logical. It's one thing to trade at a premium valuation when your earnings are $8 billion. When your earnings are $60 billion and I'm making that number up and growing that fast, you can't have a premium multiple. The numbers are too big. If Nvidia traded a premium multiple, it would be 15% of the index. So I don't, I don't, like, I know the 4P has gotten cheaper. That is logical.

That's true. The numbers are so big. The market knows you can't grow and engulf the rate. rest of the world. Correct. You can't trade it a premium multiple with numbers that big. Okay. So this is one we've talked about before. It's valuation versus profitability. It looks at the forward PE ratio versus the forward profit margin. And this thing has continued to fall. It's risen a little bit, but it's way below the historical trend line right now. If you looked at this, if you looked at this chart alone, you'd say, market looks kind of cheap

based on margins and forward PE, which is nuts. Gungeon has one. The year to date change in the S&P 500 price, earnings and valuation. And the P.E. ratio has fallen forward. percent this year, even though the index is up 8 percent. Nuts. This is why this meltup is the most logical meltup in history. Yeah. So who is I talking to about this? The word bubble to me, you have to be careful using it.

I know I throw it around all the time, like whatever. It's just, you know, it's part of the common vernacular. But to me, a bubble is prices at which the future cannot match current reality. Cannot happen. Like, there's no plausible outcome. There is no ace in the hole. there is no get out of jail free card. It cannot mathematically happen.

And we're telling you that the stocks that you would think are probably in a bubble by looking at the price and it would be hard to argue, they're trading at 10 times earnings. Not to say they can't fall 70% because they probably will. I mean, I don't know, probably. Who am I to say? But they certainly can. And that would improve a bubble. Right.

I don't have the exact quote. Cliff Aznes. I quote him in the book talking about Japan. He said a bubble is yes when a situation where the future cannot possibly explain the present. Correct. And guess what? That was Japan in the 1980s. The fundamentals were so detached from reality.

People saying that now aren't looking at the fundamentals. How many of your friends are asking you, Ben, about Micron? I haven't had many civilian market conversations in a while to tell you the truth. I don't know if I put this in the dock. Oh, here we go. Okay. You know how I talk about like, well, which trade are we talking about? When we're talking about like the mood of the market or everybody's this or everybody's this or everybody's that?

You always get mad at me when I do that because you say, who are you talking to? Who are you talking about? Well, yeah, who are you talking about? You're making it up. Like, everybody is this based on what? So. I think we have our good finger on the pulse

based on the feedback we get. There's too many pulses. That's true. So Schwab Trading Activity Index, stacks, had the largest decline in, oh man, I have the chart, but I don't have the data. I think it was the largest decline

since like 20, 21 month over month. That's Charles Schwab, the biggest custodian on the planet. Okay? What do you think would explain that? Not the point. And then next to that, no, that's not the point I'm making.

Okay. Next to Charles Schwab, this is from Daily Chartbook, retail activity. I aggregate retail investor equity flows in our platform. This is from Citadel. Sharply accelerated in April, after experiencing a brief, after experience a brief pause from the record inflows to begin this year.

The net buying on our platform last week alone was in the 98th percentile of weekly flow since 2019. Okay. Chwal Schwab has the biggest monthly decline in investor sentiment and activity, not just sentiment, not squishy, activity since 2021. And Citadel market makers, which is like Robert and all the traders, was in the 98th percentile of weekly flow since 2019. So there is no pulse of the market. There are a million pulses. Okay. Yes.

And now that you say the explanation is obvious, people with more mature portfolios at this point are saying, all right, I'm not doing anything right now. I'm not touching this. I'm going to let it go. I'm not going to do one way or the other. And the other people are going, no, we're putting our foot on the gas.

Correct. That makes sense. Back to the bubble talk. Warren Pyes. It says, Arina Bubble. Is this 2000? My opinion, no and no. Remember, these questions have been in the air for years now.

Fiscal policy remains one of the most important macro differences. In 2000, the government was running a 2% surplus. Today, the deficit is 6%. And it's funny because, and he has all these, he looks at today versus the 90s in this chart. It's pretty interesting. And it's funny because we heard this in the 2010s where people said, the only reason the market is going up is because the Fed has late rates so low. The market is being manipulated.

And they'd be the ones like on the sideline telling you go to cash. In this decade, it's been the only reason everything is up so much is because the government printed trillions of dollars, then they want you to use that as a reason to get out. And it's like, no, no, no, that's the reason to still be in. That's one of the reasons why this is all a 6% deficit. Guess where that money goes? Profits for companies.

That's right. This is not the reason to get out. This is the reason to stay in. That's such a great point. So, I know we spoke with this last week. Was Google's beat in a 90% beat? It was very high. Yes.

I want to talk about South Korea, though, for a second, because this is another, if you look at the chart, and I feel like unless you're using your very long, because I put a bunch of these vertical charts on social media last week. Like there's all these charts, Sandisk and WDC, and then if you look at EWY, which is a South Korea and ETH, it just is going vertical. You really, it's just, ooh, my voice cracked.

You really do need to log these charts. But why do you need to log it if it's so, if it's this short term? I feel like a log is fine for a long-term chart. For a short-term chart, I don't need a log. What are you talking about? Ben, the South Korea chart goes back to 2000. It's 25 years. Of course you have to log it.

Hello? You literally have to log this. I'm looking at like five-year, 10-year charts. I feel like 10 years you're good with not logging. That's where I stand. The chart that I'm looking at in this dock goes back to 2000. That's fair. So South Korea for the last 10 years is up like 250%.

It's up all of that gain has happened in the last one year. Okay? All that entire gain in the last 10 years for South Korea has happened in the one year. Daniel Van Aen. I think I said his name right. By the reason why you need to log these charts for people like, what the hell are you guys talking about? If a stock goes, if you're looking at a stock chart,

it goes from 20 to 40 and the stock is, and the stock goes from 300 to 600, the move to 300 dwarfs it visually, but it's the same thing. So a log just eliminates the point changes. But the worst people in terms of going into chart crime jail are the ones who narrow their charts very considerably. So it makes it look like the chart is going.

going just from zero to a million, right? They make, especially on social media, people know how to narrow it. Anyway, so he shows the forward EPS for South Korean stocks. And look at this, also going vertical, right alongside. And this went nowhere forever. Why? Because these are now AI stocks. This is remarkable.

You don't see earnings per share charts looking like a meme stock very often. No, look, it tracks the price, the stock prices, exactly. This is fundamentals and prices matching up with one another. But obviously, people have pointed out, two stocks make up 50% of this index. So if you think we're concentrated here, so it's SK-Hinix and then Samsung. And of course, those are now AI plays. This is kind of crazy from Charter. South Korea overtook Canada become the world's seventh largest stock market.

So South Korean stock market is now bigger than Canada and bigger the United Kingdom. Imagine telling someone 100 years ago, South Korea is going to have a bigger stock market than the UK. I've talked about this before. People keep saying that the U.S. is the fall of the Roman Empire. No one ever talks about how the United Kingdom is literally the fall of the Roman Empire. They were like the modern Roman Empire. And their stock market is now smaller than South Korea,

a country that in the 1950s was destroyed and split into two. How could you ever possibly explain that to someone 75 or 100 years ago? They wouldn't have believed you. Exciting times we live in. Nobody knows where this is going. But, and this is another, this is another, so emerging markets are going crazy this year. Mark So Cardi says they're up 23% in the last six weeks. Best rally in 17 years.

Best rally in 17 years. Because emerging markets went from like an energy index into a technology index. But isn't this one of those things where you find they go, oh, this is, I think it's good to see some of these companies overseas taking part in this boom. Yeah. Right? Taiwan Semiconductor and South Korean stocks and emerging markets finally going nuts. Like, it's good to see that it's not just the U.S. anymore. Because I do think that's going to be one of the things we see with AI. That's my prediction.

What's that? The internet didn't really, like Tom Friedman, the internet flattened the world or whatever, right? But the U.S. was still kind of the winner. I really do think AI is going to, like, absolutely bring in globalization even more from a now. talent, business perspective. I think this is going to be the thing that does it. Financial Advisors. I had a podcast on Talking Wealth with Michael Kitsis, where we discussed the future of AI in our industry. And I think that, I mean, you could spend four hours on this conversation. We are going to be dealing with a much more engaged and educated

consumer, which is great for everyone. Well, it's not good for bad advisors. If you've, you know, If you've been asleep at the wheel, doing the bare minimum, that's not good. But an educated customer makes for a better customer, similar to my HVAC story. And I am so excited for our future, for our industry. This is, it's. Yeah. These are exciting times. That's a must listen podcast or video is very good.

Check out of our talking about YouTube channel. Here's my thinking. I think the 2020s is the most disruption that financial advisors have ever had in their history. And I don't think I don't think I don't. think that people are ready for it. But think about what we did in 2020. We leveled the playing field in terms of when Zoom calls,

when people became okay to do Zoom calls, I know there's still people who say, I'm only going to go to the financial advisor who lives in my town. There's some people who still do that. But it flattened everything in terms of communication. People are now accepting of video calls in taking a service from someone

who doesn't live in the same city they're in. That happened overnight. Now AI is going to come. And you're right. If you don't have the not knowledge base, and the ability to deal with a more knowledgeable client or prospect? Ten years ago, you're done. We were explaining what a fiduciary was, the difference between us and a wirehouse.

Now the customer comes to us so much more educated, which is great for both sides. A friend of mine who's an advisor yesterday texting me about this. So watching you and Michael right now and fun story, I literally had a conversation like this last week. The client ended up staying with me instead of going somewhere else, in part because everything I told them was closer to what Claude said than the other guys did. Wow. It's interesting. So, all right. So Gungeon at the Wall Street Journal, this is a great story. I asked Chad TPT to manage a stock portfolio. Here's how it did. So she said, she gave these prompts. Your future financial advisor, managing my long-term portfolio. Here's my age range. My goals is growth. My

Time horizon is long term. My risk tolerance is kind of middle ground. It's a million dollar portfolio. Taxable account. Have at it. And I mean, it's not the worst. The portfolio is fine, right? Totally fine.

It looks like a robo advisor. It's totally fine. Yes. It looks like a robot advisor. I'm sure they stole a lot from it. Now, in the article of like you could poke some holes in it. Like, hey, there's too much cash here. It's fine.

It's fine. It's better than fine. It's totally good. Yes. You could quibble with it. But obviously, if you get this, as the output, you say, no, no, no, I don't want that. That's way too much of this. Change this, change this, change that. But this is just, it's just, it's just further taking us down the line of

certain things being commoditized. Like, the simple asset allocation is a commodity. Like, there's, advisors are going to have to find a way to stand out. And that's why I think, so you had, you guys had Eric Beltunis on the compounded friends last week, which was very good. And his point of, like, active ETFs kind of taking back their corner a little bit, this is why I think I would be bullish on active ETFs going forward. Well, let's give ourselves a plug. We don't tell a ton on this show. But we are, so we spent the last, when did we start working on Porterhouse in the winter?

Been a while, yeah. I can't remember. So we started working on an in-house momentum strategy for Red Hillsworth clients only. And the premise was based on Josh and Sean do a best stocks list on CNBC. they've been doing it for a while now. And it's one thing to have a list of stocks, like a screen, where it's like, all right, I want to own basically the premises. I want to own good, I want to own great stocks.

I want to own the best stocks, the stocks that are working today. And I also want them to be good companies so that when the tide goes out, they don't fall 80%. Right. Because there's a lot of shitty stocks. There's a lot of shitty companies that make for good stocks in any given moment. We didn't know how to turn a list into a portfolio. we tried, but we're not, we're not quants. It's not our, that's not our...

Fulfill management versus a buy list is a huge leap. So we've used momentum ETFs and versions of that for a decade plus, I think. But we've never like done it in-house. So we partnered with Franklin Templeton, and we built a momentum strategy that is launching, launching in June for Riddholt's wealth clients only. we've been invested in it, Ben and I since January, and we've been working through some of the kinks and stuff. Momentum just went on a historic run.

So I wish we were able to get people invested earlier. But anyway, this is a plug, obviously. We will have a link in the show notes if you want to reach out to us and learn more about what we're doing there. But I think that the AI point of this story is that turning those rules and those ideas into an actual portfolio strategy that is, you know, in terms of the tree, and the turnover, and there's a ton of decisions you have to make. And I think you could

put together a back test that looks awesome, and it's not a real-world portfolio. You have to take, there's real-world considerations you have to do when making a rules-based portfolio like this, and it's more concentrated. And one of the reasons that I like the strategy for me personally, remember, I said a million times I'm giving up on stock picking. This is a strategy that will own stocks that I would never in a million years be able to force myself to own at the time. In a momentum strategy like this, it's rules-based. That's why I like it, because it takes me out of the equation. I would not buy these stocks on my own.

I shared this. I shared this with our advisors yesterday. One of the stocks we owned, again, this is an incredible environment for momentum. The strategy might not ever have a better period that it's had the first six months, five months of the year. We own a stock,

doesn't matter which stock, a stock that I would ever buy. That is at $2,500 a share. And I said to the advisors, I would have bought this at $1,000 and sold it at $1,200. And that's the point of having a rules-based strategy. And I said, actually, you know what?

I wouldn't have bought it a thousand because the stock was at 500, like not even a year prior. And one of the great things, and last thing about, I'll move on. One of the great things that we're so proud of and excited about the strategy is most momentum strategies that are in the market are fully invested at all times. And so in like a bare market, it'll be relative momentum. So which stocks are doing the best versus the crashing index or the bare market index? So it can own a lot of staples and like boring names, not the strategy. If there are no stocks that meet the criteria of what we're trying to do here,

which is own the best stocks that are good businesses, if none of those exist because every mark, because it's just a washout, eventually the buy list will shrink to zero, and we won't own stocks. You know who that reminded me of when we initially put these rules in is that's how John Borman used to run money. If there was no stocks going up, he would go to cash.

Remember him? Of course I remember him. Great man. Yeah. But no, but that's how I loved his discipline was, if there's no stocks that mean, my criteria, I'm not going to buy any. Anyway, yes. Interesting strategy.

Something that in my book, I write a lot about the benefits of being rules-based and making good decisions ahead of time and doing all the hard work ahead of it. We put in, I don't know, six, eight months on this strategy before implementing it because we wanted the rules to make sense. And you do the heavy lifting up front so you don't have to do it in the moment. That's, to me, that's how I become a successful investor. Because this strategy, the momentum one, and everything else will have periods where it absolutely sucks shit. And you have to know in advance what that environment looks like. And you just eat it because everything is seasonal. Risk of reward.

Am I right, Ben? That's true. All right. Greg, it's funny because we have an artificial intelligence header in our doc. Our doc has all the different headers, 20 different headers or something of the topics we're talking about. And we have one that's artificial intelligence. And now AI is in every, under every heading, it seems like. Anyway, Greg Epp says AI is distorting practically everything about the economy.

It makes growth look better and the job market look worse. Maybe an AI investment bust wouldn't hurt so much after all. This is like a contrarian take. An AI bust would hurt so much after all. All right. So here's his control. I don't necessarily agree with this, but I think it's worth considering. So he says the hypers, according to Morgan Stanley, are going to spend $800 billion this year,

$1.1 trillion next year. At 3.3% of gross domestic product next year's figure would, exceed projected spending on national defense. It is funny because that sounds super duper high, but it's like, that's 3.3%. But obviously, that's still in the grand scheme. So he shows, look at

the chart here that shows AI CapEx versus defense spending. It shows next year, yes, it's going to pass it. So here's why he thinks this wouldn't be the worst thing if it rolled over. And I totally disagree to this. Like, if AI rolls over, there's probably going to be recession.

The most recent action in the stock market has definitely brought me over to the side of Josh's wealth effect. Now, I am not like an on-off wealth effect guy. I think there are periods of time where the market really doesn't lead to a lot of spending activity. But I think now... 2010s was one where the wealth effect didn't really have an impact, I'd say. Yeah.

2020s, yes. But especially in recent times, there is so much wealth in the stock market. People are borrowing against their portfolios. People are spending money. And I'm not saying that's good, bad, or going to last forever. But I'm just saying today, it is definitely driving. driving the way that people make decisions with their spending habits. I've got a great story about borrowing its portfolio coming up later.

All right. So he says, overall U.S. growth is low if the AI stuff turned down, right? But less than you think, just 33 counties account for 72% of data centers. So construction drought wouldn't ripple that widely. Stocks and profits would fall, but the average worker who depends more on wages and wealth would barely be affected. Oh, well, that's true. And the mood might improve if bosses stop talking about doing everything AI.

The average worker would probably be relatively unimpacted, unless there were a recession. Yes, that's a problem. There's no guarantees. There's no always and there's no never. I would put the odds of a recession 90 plus percent if the AI spending rolled over. I would put it very high. Well, let me just so we're defining this. When you say roll over, do you mean like roll over to like 80% of current spending or like a hundred and a half?

If it was a big pullback, like, all right, this isn't working. we're pulling back. And I don't know how to define that. But I think it's one of those things where like pornography, you know when you see it. Remember that thing? I think that's all right. I agree with you.

I don't think it would be a soft landing if all of a sudden there was a huge pullback in AI spending. I don't know why I put this in this part of the dock. Oh, this is under the economy. Oh, there we go. Okay. That's why. So on the Disney call last week,

we haven't seen any changing consumer behavior from elevated gas prices thus far and aren't currently seeing a material impact of the remainder of the fiscal year based on forward bookings. Disney World bookings are pacing up strongly. And even with our 40% increase in cruise capacity, book occupancy remains in line with the prior year. Disney's the one company, like you always say,

listen to the earnings calls. Disney's the one company where you'd listen to the earnings calls and go, this stock must be on fire. True. Right? Yeah. But I think I like to listen to the calls more in terms of like what's really happening with the economy.

Yes, I agree. as opposed to reading the headlines. We talk a lot about the K-shaped economy. And let me be clear, it is absolutely K-shaped. I don't know if it's like an even K. I think the upper K is like a lot bigger than the lower part of the K. And my point is we act like it's only rich people and everybody else.

Disney is like everybody else in the upper, I don't know, upper 60% or 50%, whatever it is. Disney's extremely expensive. Yeah. And it's not just for the top. one percent. Somehow, some way, there are a lot of people going to Disney. I agree. There definitely is the top one percent there and they cut the lines and they use the passes and they pay for the guides and stuff. But it's Disney, if you look at the people there,

it's a wide range of people. It's a wide segmentation of the population. It's not just one substance. It's not just the top 10 percent that go to Disney. All right. Josh shared with us an article on artificial intelligence and Bailey Gifford. I'm going to read two parts of it. This was, in my opinion, the best thing I think that I've seen on what AI is going to do to our brains, the way that we process information, the way that impact society as a whole. Did you read this? Yeah, it's something. It was, it was the piece came out a couple months ago. Oh, did it? Someone shared it on social media last week. Maybe Jesse Livermore or something, because I read it too. Very good. All right. So, here we go. This is already breaking the

apprenticeship model that has transmitted professional expertise for millennia. junior lawyers, accountants, and doctors have traditionally built competence by doing grunt work under the supervision of senior practitioners. The work was tedious, but the learning was real. You develop judgment by doing the thing badly at first with someone more experienced correcting you. If AI handles the grunt work instead, the learning pathway disappears. This is not hypothetical. Shopify's chief executive recently told his teams that before requesting additional headcount, they must first demonstrate why AI cannot do the work.

From an investor's perspective, the logic is sound. It drives efficiency, widens margins, and makes the company's leaner. I own Shopify shares. I understand the rationale, but every role that AI absorbs is one that a junior employee would have once learned by doing. The efficiency gain and the training loss are the same decision viewed from different angles. That's such a good line.

The efficiency gain and the training loss are the same decision viewed from different angles. Then the consequences for white-collar professionals are all. already visible. Entry-level hiring at major technology companies has fallen more than 50% below pre-pandemic levels. Generative AI doesn't eliminate entire occupations overnight. Instead, it hollows the map from within, automating 30 or 40% of an employee's workload, leaving fewer entry-level roles in compressing opportunities for career progression. The result is organizations that get more done with fewer people today, but have fewer ways to train the people they will

need tomorrow. This creates a widening gap, not just between companies but within them, between a shrinking cadre of AI fluent senior professionals and a growing population of graduates who cannot get a foot on the ladder that those seniors once climbed. This is why I think that, I don't know how long it's going to be, three years, five years, ten years,

there's going to be an overreaction the other way and people going, why were we so short-sighted and we didn't train people and we didn't hire people? That we saved some money in the short term, sure, but it hurt us in the long term. Well, this is where, this is the other side of the pendulum. I'll quote them one more time. AI will most likely produce three trajectories for those without pre-existing expertise.

Some will build careers around orchestrating AI itself, though the evidence suggested that their work will be more fragile than they realize. Others are already moving into physical trades and care work where human presence still matters. The rest will be caught in the gap. Too late to build traditional expertise, too early to benefit from whatever new institutional structures eventually emerge, and this is the point. The last group, this last group, is most politically consequential because historically, large populations of educated but unemployed young people

are among the most reliable predictors of social instability. And there's no doubt about it, no doubt in my mind that this is the path that we're on. And it's obviously not all good, It's obviously not all bad. There's great parts of it. There's bad parts of it. But this particular bad part of it is not going to be good. We talk to a lot of young people and hear a lot of the young voices and we have some conversations internally about, man, at this age, how are they so jaded already?

How are they so pessimistic and cynical? And like at that age, they should be wide-eyed and optimistic. And the thing is, I actually understand why they are like they are, why they're so cynical, and why they see what, they not only see what's happening with, like, the housing market, but they see what's coming with AI. And so they, this like financial nihilism and, and just like, what's the point? I understand where that comes from. Same.

But it's also, it's very depressing. So when I came up, my very first job, I had education, but I had no, I knew nothing. And my boss said, listen, you're going to work as an analyst for us for two to three years. How did you get your first job? It was kind of like my resume got passed around to pass around and passed around and landed on the right lap, you know? And I looked for a small company. And here's the thing. My job, what doesn't exist today? I was literally a performance analyst. I would go, I would get the statements every month and I would calculate. We had a model on Lotus 1,2,

three, and I would calculate the performance. I input the numbers. And the thing is, those two or three years, I still use that to this day. My boss, every Friday, he'd bring us on a whiteboard and teach us something about asset allocation or investment guidelines. But understanding how performance worked in getting to know like the range of returns for stocks versus bonds and how cash performs, like that stuff, learning that by hand for me was so helpful and helped me understand how markets actually functioned. And if you take that away from people, it was so, such a great learning experience for me. Again, I still use, like, I'm so fluent on Excel and stuff today and calculating returns and doing charts because I went through that period of training. If you take that

training way. I mean, unfortunately, it is, it is being taken away. So you're going to have to learn on your own now. That's the thing. It's, it's up to you to learn if no one's going to train you. But I would encourage people to read this article, because they talk about the physiology of the brain and what happens when you outsource your thinking. Like the actual chemical balance of what happens. He talked about how 200 years ago, what is it? 12% of the people world's adults could read today, it's 87%. He's like, listen, when we acquired literacy, it rewired our brains. AI is going to do the same thing in a different way.

And I mean, they were like looking at the brain with like science, like not like, not like, oh, with words. Like, oh, your brain was rewired. No, no, no, no. Literally, your brain matter changed. All right. So the CFO of Uber on their call, just staying with this depressing topic, I would say candidly, when we set up budgets for 2026 in November, we underestimated the, the amount of

impact the AI tools could have. And as Dara said, we are trading that off. against incremental headcount. It's scary. If I was a politician, I would be jacking up any tax rate. Tax the robots. I would say, we're going to lower taxes for you, the citizen. We're going to tech the shit out of these robots and AI companies. Yeah. We're going to take all of their wealth. Sorry. Yeah.

We appreciate it. We're going to take a lot of this. All right. You have a story about Chipotle AI customer service, Ben? Oh, yes. So weekends are full. You said last week, you talked about how busy you are with kids. This weekend, you know, every weekend it seems that we had five. My daughter had three basketball games in a tournament straight into a soccer game. And my other daughter had a soccer game too. So five games in one day on Saturday. So my daughter say, listen, we're going to be busy.

We want like some protein. So get us Chipotle for lunch before our games. Okay. So I order Chipotle. I go there and we got it early because their game started early. So I got to Chipotle like 1115. And they're like, and all these people are waiting. They go, hey, anyone.

And I can see all, everything's empty. There's no food out yet, you know? Like, we opened late. Nothing's ready. If you're here for a pickup order, it's not going to be ready. Sorry. All right. Can you cancel my order?

No, we can't cancel. You did it online. All right, fine. Whatever. See you later. I left. Then we get to dinner. My daughter, after their games are done, they said, actually, we want Chipotle now.

I still want it. We didn't get it. So I ordered it again. This time I did DoorDash, because we just got home. I don't want to go back again. And DoorDash brings our Chipotle. Guess what they brought? Our order from the morning that had been literally sitting out since 1130 a.m.

They must have made it after I left. But they didn't pick up my new order. They picked up my old order. All the food, it was... Believe all. Been sitting out for six hours or something. And of course, you just hit it up in the microwave and didn't say anything to anybody.

Oh, no. I... Yeah, no. It was hard. I probably would have done it if my wife wasn't there. Let's be honest. But she's like, no, throw it away. But so I'm like...

So I thought, like, I deserve a refund for this, but I don't want to go through the process of, like, calling a number and getting a refund. But then I went on their website and I asked ChatTPT, like, how do I get a refund from these orders I didn't get? and they said, oh, go to Tripoli.com. They have an AI agent. Did it work?

I typed it in. I said, I said, what happened? And they said, is this the order you're talking on? And they brought it up. I said, yes. Give me a refund. What happened? This is what happened.

Here you go. Here's a refund. It happened in 30 seconds. Very cool. It was like my first good experience with an AI customer service agent. So, I've been complaining about voice with Apple. Apparently, I don't enunciate my words, Ben. Eric Newcomber, there was a post.

He wrote, customer support and dictation loom large as voice startup leaders prepare for a world of talking machines. So this is inevitable. Obviously, this is going to be great for everybody, I assume, except for the people whose jobs it takes. I'm not saying that flippantly. That's obviously not great for them. All right.

There's a couple called Sierra. They just raised $950 million at a $16 billion valuation. Holy shit. Sierra's agents are widespread enough that they've already talked to each other on the phone. I'm not familiar with this company. I assume we will be shortly. But then they also spoke about Whisperflow, a company that I, an app that I am now using on my phone, sort of. His company takes great care and turning your stream of consciousness into correctly punctuated

pros. What Whisper does is, as you're using it the first five, six times, it learns your common patterns at really small detail is what adds to the delight. So Ramp actually recently found that Whisper Flow is the third fastest, growing software vendor. How about that? Okay. So I was complaining that it's kind of annoying because Apple won't let you just, you know how Apple has a microphone icon? When you hit the whisper icon, it takes you out of the app, it takes you into the whisper app, which then takes you back in. And it's mildly irritating.

It's like watching sports on a streaming TV. Like it's harder to. It's mildly irritating. So I've got a bone to pick with Apple, Ben. And it's not just because of whisper flow. I have two bones. And one bone is bigger than the other. So, as you know, my beloved Knicks are doing quite well. And I am on multiple threads with Nix fans. Perhaps this exists already, but it would be great if I were able to send messages to multiple groups in a more efficient manner, as opposed to copying and pasting, copying and pasting, copy and pasting, right? That could get you in trouble, though.

Well, if you're, I mean, if you're drinking, it could get you into trouble. But I want to be able to set up groups. Just saying the wrong thing to two groups at once and one person's in the group you didn't know. Like, that sounds risky. I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good with techs. All right. So I would like that feature.

If I could request that feature, if Tim Apple is listening. I just want to say that the Knicks are going to the finals. Yeah. I don't want to jinx you, but there's no way the Cavs are beating them. I don't think so. I'm not an overconfident fan. No. There's no way the Knicks are losing.

Neither of those teams have the guys. Not that anybody wants to hear me talk about the next or the Pistons, but the Pistons second and third scores are Tobias Harris and Duncan Robinson. I don't know how they won so many games. They have one star player and the rest of their team is all role players. I don't know how they got so far. And they have no bench. The Cavs are the Cavs.

We don't need to get into that. Okay. The other, so Tim Apple is a parting gift to your billion plus users, please. But here's the real thing that I implore you to consider strongly. We had a spring flag football. group chat. Guess what, Ben? Springflag football is over. In fact, it ended a month ago. This is a lively group. There are lots of dings. I tried to mute the conversation. It's still dinging. It just, you know, for whatever reason, this particular conversation,

it won't mute itself. And it's a lively bunch. It's a great. Why are these parents still talking each other after the football season's over? Yeah. Nice people, okay? Nothing, nothing wrong with people. not like right against people. But I've been saying to Robin for weeks and weeks, I got to leave. I got to get out of here. Why are these people still making jokes? The season ended six weeks ago.

It's enough. I'm not good in group tech situation. That wife, so I was like, will you respond, please? I'm like, no, I don't want to respond. I didn't ask to be added. A group was created with like 25 plus people on it. So I knew that when you leave, it says the number has left. Can I Irish, I want an Irish exit a conversation.

Oh, okay. I agree. Why do you need to force, why do you need to embarrass somebody? Now, I thought I was being a hero. I thought, listen, well, if I go first, it will give other people permission who are afraid to leave. We can all leave. It's over.

The party has ended. Let's all go home. But yeah, why can I just leave this? Now I have to get embarrassed. And now the group is like, oh, well, Michael left and now Robin's still there and she's embarrassed. Come on. That's true.

Yes. A subtle leave. I agree. Again, I wasn't, I didn't ask to be added to the group. So in other words, if people just add your number to a group chat and you want to leave, you get shamed? I think it's a great. If you leave a group chat, it's a great flex. Like, oh, oh, okay.

Yeah, but I mean, I'm not the most friendly guy to begin with. I think people probably think I'm a jerk. Yeah. So Scott Galloway and Ellison do this great thing. I don't know if it's new. It's new to me where they have a bunch of topics where they go back and forth and they each give their own take and like a paragraph. I like it. It's a good format.

Yeah, it's a good news letter. By the way, quick plug, I was on. Profji podcast last week. Oh, hell yeah. Ed, and then Rameet, talking about actually the $500,000 paycheck to paycheck because if we talked about this show,

good conversation. So this particular format is like PTI in a blog. I like it. I like it too. I was dead wrong on this. I think I, not a thing. I severely underestimated

the scale of GLP ones of their impact on chocolate and alcohol. It's a real thing. Shares of the world's top-listed beer and wine and spirits makers have shed more than $830 billion since 2021. Dang. The outlook for booze companies doesn't look promising, according to a study of 14,000 Weight Watchers members.

Well, there's another company that's going under. Weight Watchers. What do you need Weight Watchers for when you have those epic? Roughly 50% of patients who drink alcohol prior to starting a GLP1 decreased their alcohol consumption after starting the drug. Unbelievable stuff. Speaking of weight loss, Ben? I'm sure you have people in your life who've taken Osepic

or people that you know. The weirdest thing about it is you can tell when someone has taken it. Not like because of the weight loss. Like there's some something about it in the face. I don't know what it is that you can tell that someone's done it.

Well, it's the weight loss. No, but like it looks different than they would have if they would have just lost the weight on their life. Because it's radical weight loss. Yeah. It's one thing to lose eight pounds. It's another thing to lose 27.

So yeah. I thought about it. Like, you know what I said, I didn't really deliberate. I was like, should I just take one of these things because my, my,

my, I look at my belly. It's not great. Keep doing, if you do it, they'll keep doing the planks because you lose muscle. Um,

I'm, I'm planking my ass off. And I got, I wasn't going to do this, Ben, but this is my last, my last purchase for push-ups. This,

this thing is money, Ben. What is it? It's a different push-up. Because you know what? I swear to God, my wrist started to hurt by doing push-ups on the floor.

But this, you could target, multiple areas of your... So you pick them... But look, you could like pop it out and pop it in. All right, anyway. But you know what I did? I did...

So Peloton, so you know how I used to use a trainer? You have the weakest arms of any person ever... You can't do planks and you can't do push-ups? I could do... No, bones. Weakest bones. My bones are brittle. But I did a Peloton workout class.

I don't need a trainer. I can just do Peloton. Oh, that's true. So you still... Yeah, you can just do lifting and... other stuff through Palatown, right? Yeah. That's a good idea.

So, uh, so all this time, because you probably use your Palatown bike in what, four years? Four years. So the, so, so,

you still, you've still, you've still, though, I suppose. When you, when you see me in, in a year and you say,

hey, Michael looks different. It's not Ozempic. I've just been hitting the, Duncan, Duncan says, if we don't get a fitness, uh, sponsorship out of this.

I don't know what, what else, but, so obviously you're on Instagram again, because you're buying all this junk that you don't need. All right. Instagram is very hard to live with that for me because I'm posting a lot of our socials there.

I love it. So here's my new thing. This brick thing, I have two of these. One at home and one on the road, one in my backpack. So if I brick my stuff, lock all my apps, which I always do, that's my default. And I forget to unbrick it and I'm out. That's it.

I've never seen that before. So that thing actually blocks the apps that you can't use them. My apps are blocked. I cannot access them. Now that is a If that's not a thing about behavioral psychology I don't know what is It works

I literally I need this because I can't So listen to listen to this But hold on my what is this I have been on bricking To go on Instagram to post But my shopping is going to crash Because I'm not really on it the way that I used to be I'm on it and that I brick it

I post it This one is the worst This thing That's the worst So you having to break your thing So you've seen my neighborhood, right? It's a little cul-de-sac There's 20 houses.

It's not big. But there's like a 15 speed limit. And there's tons of little kids who play in the street all the time. And there's probably five or six teenagers on the block now that I'll drive. And they drive like maniacs. Down that little road?

Come on, you got to yell. They drive so fast. So they finally had a homeowners association meeting. I wasn't there. And they said, hey, sorry. We're putting in speed bumps. You have to. I'm like, oh, I'm like, I don't, speed bumps are so annoying, but guess what?

You have to. It's the only thing that, you know what I saw, though? The teenagers drive by, they fly over the speed bumps. They don't stop. They just, like, they're going to wreck their cars because they don't slow down. They just drive over them as fast as they can. But that sometimes you need the speed bumps. You need the brick to stop your behavior.

All right. I got to, I got to sock a dad. I was, I was waking up. Oh, here's another thing. So my bedroom, the people that built the house that I bought, there is so much sunlight in my bedroom, Ben, from both sides, both the front and the back, because there's windows in the front and there's doors, windows in the back, and there's curtains in front of the doors, but then on top of the doors is a like half cylinder, I suppose,

window. And the sunlight just shines through in the morning and the sunrises at, I don't know, 5.50 or so, whatever. So I'm freaking up at 6 o'clock every morning because the sun is blasting me. And I was spending 45 minutes on Instagram, hence the brick. I need it. I can't help it. Okay. But you know what else I did? Because of this damn sunlight done? I got a sleep mask. I can see that. I don't know what else to do. I would like to wake up naturally without the sun just blasting me in the face. But you ever sleep with a sleep mask? I'm guessing nod, who sleeps with the sleep mask? Who the hell sleeps with the sleep mask?

I can see that for you. All right, I've got a soccer dad update on crypto. I've mentioned this like a year ago. Some of the soccer dad update on crypto. Yeah. So probably about a year ago, some of the soccer dads approached me in the sidelines. And hey, Ben, get in this Bitcoin conversation. I said, oh boy. And these guys are like, one of the guys, one of the dads was an evangelist. And he brought the other guy in. And the guy said, listen, we were having old fashions last night. And he talked me into buying Bitcoin. So at the game this weekend, they said, all right, Ben, we've got an update on crypto and they kind of had a sheepish grin on their face like, oh, you know, like, when your kid does something wrong and they don't want to tell you. I'm like, all right,

they're like, you kind of into Bitcoin a little. Yeah, I own some. I told them I sold half of when I hit 100 and I, they're like, oh, cool. They're like, here's what we did. When it was at 100, we went to our crypto brokerage and we borrowed it. We borrowed against it. And I said, okay, what are you borrowing at? They said, ah, six or seven percent. I said, that's not terrible, I guess. It's like a margin loan. Okay. So we borrow against it, but they said the, but the crypto brokerage won't let us then take that margin and buy more crypto. So we took the money off the platform. Yeah, I said, that's smart, okay? And I'm not going to name the crypto exchange, they said. And they said, but what we did is we put the borrowed money into one of

the micro strategy call option ETFs thinking this is free money. And guess what? It's not free money. This strategy has crashed. So for the past six months, we've been having to feed more and more money into our brokerage account for crypto to cover the margin. It has to be, because the margin, I guess the rules were higher than I thought. I don't know. 80%.

It's a very high number that they have to keep. So they said for the past year, we've just been funneling all of our money to keep this margin up. And luckily, crypto has come back a little bit. Were they laughing about it? Like, was it? Yes.

Okay. They were laughing like, I can't believe we did this. Like, what were we thinking? You know, you know what? Everybody goes through this. Everybody does something stupid with investing. God knows.

I've had more than my fair share. And you got to pay the Piper. It's the only way to learn. But at least it sounds like it wasn't catastrophic. No. And they were, and I think one of the guys was probably into it more than the other. Because one of the guys just kind of followed the other guy's lead.

But yes, there, anyway, it was. I skipped over this data point back to the GLP1 stuff. This is a face blur, Ben. Never would have guessed this. 5.8% of Americans, at least, according to Gallup. I don't know if this is 100% accurate, but whatever. 5.8% of Americans in the first quarter of 2024,

we're using a GLP1, and now it's 12.4%. And that's actually old. That's actually a year ago. I kind of believe that it's sort of in the ballpark. And also, that number will never be lower than it is today. Correct. The New York Times is something on longevity, which I think is interesting.

So it's that a longer life can lead to financial concerns. And they talk about like the pros and cons, obviously, of living a longer life. And it says, like, outliving your savings is becoming more and more pronounced for a lot of people. So you take a 65-year-old couple, there's a 64% chance, so two-third chance or so, that at least one partner will live beyond 90. So we always talk about why people don't want to spend down their money. Like, why don't people just do it? Like, this is one of the reasons.

I got it. People are freaked out and terrified. They're going to outlive their money. This is also interesting from the Wall Street Journal. The great wealth transfer that we've been talking about forever, right? Baby more money has to come down at some point. It's going to be passed down. So look at all the money they have.

And they look at like when those inheritances will happen by generation. They're showing like the amount per, and it'll be Gen X at first, obviously. And then that rolls over. But most of these inheritances aren't going to happen, especially for millennials, until like the bulk of it until, I don't know, the 2030s and possibly into the 2040s. Like if your parents are living longer, again, we've talked about this. We know people. Everyone knows someone, a millennial,

their retirement plan is my rich parents are going to give me their money. Yeah. Like, we know those people. And it's, it's, listen, I'm not mad at anyone. This is life, but it's just, it's going to be, I don't know, funny is where I were, but odd or whatever when people's parents die and they just like immediately like 10 X their life. Yes. Or I know people now who live beyond their means and don't save anything because they know that that it's coming.

Yeah. Which guess what I would, I would too. That's normal. But the thing is, if people are living along, like you, the planning for this, threading the needle. Oh, oh. What if you don't get the money until you're 65? Right, right, right.

Well, that's when it could happen for a lot of people. That's the point. Like, the wealth transfer is not. And also, I mean, there's a ton of people. And everybody who's around our age can, can like, yeah, of course. We all know people like this whose parents just subsidize a ton of their lifestyle, whether it's the kids camps or whatever, right? Oh, yeah, definitely.

So the other thing is that no one ever brings up when they talk about the wealth transfer. So I was on Melissa Joy's podcast. She's a fellow flyover state person. She has this women's money wisdom. And we talked about women and money a little bit and about my book. But we talked about how the first wealth transfer is not going to be to the kids. It's going to be from mostly if it's a man and a woman married together. It's the husband dying first and the woman living five or ten years longer and then getting the money.

That's going to be the first wealth transfer is women are going to control so much more of the money. in the financial industry is not prepared for that. Yeah. For women having control over the bulk of the assets. That's going to happen because women live longer than men. Anyway. I saw. Oh, I saw. Sean posted this.

I didn't confirm the accuracy. Our guy, Sean, posted or Slack to us that they're filming ghost in Queens where he lives. Oh, Channing Tatum is going to play the role. You can't do this. this cannot happen. No. That does not need to be remade. It just doesn't.

That is a perfect movie. And it came out when it should have came out and it aged wonderfully and just no. Yeah. I agree. Some things you shouldn't touch. I don't remember the first time I saw it goes. I was probably a baby.

And I probably cried like a baby. I was probably like eight years old when my mom showed me that movie. I watched a movie over the weekend, Ben, that made me cry. Okay. The movie is called Remarkably Bright Creatures. Are you familiar with this one? It's on Netflix. I saw the tile for it.

I didn't watch it. Oh, I spoke about this yesterday with the gang. Okay, my wife asked me if I wanted to watch this. Watch it. Is this, I should I watch it? Yeah. It's an airplane movie. Okay.

But I cried and I did not see myself crying. It was a surprise cry, and I loved it. Okay. I'm a huge tier guy. Makes me feel good. I was the last time Sally Field was in a movie. Right. Oh, here's what I was ask you.

What's the last movie that made you cry? And I have a guess. Because you're not a crier. You're not a movie crier. You know what it was? Okay, what's your guess? Rudy. Now, I don't see the thing is kind of,

I'm a Michigan fan, so I could never cry for a Notre Dame movie. All right, fair enough, I suppose. You know what it was? Field of Dr. dreams. Okay. Yeah. But it was, it was right after my brother died. And I feel the dreams came on, and he had to catch with his dad, and I lost it. Uh, I'm gonna quite thinking about that soon. Yeah, I got, and my daughter looked at me and she's like, oh my gosh. Uh, okay, I've got,

I have a, I have an idea for a movie production company, okay? Here's what my movie production company is gonna be called. 95 minutes or less. Okay? One of the greatest things about 80s and 90s movies is how short they were. Some movies deserve the longer treatment. There are some movies that just are better when they're two hours, you need some time. But most movies should be 95 minutes or less. That would be my thing. Hey, listen, if you're a director, a producer, an actor, you come to do a movie at our studio, that's fine. Here's your constraint. 95 minutes or less. That's it. It's also cheaper. Cheaper to do it. Cut all the fat away, yes. With you. So I watched Send Help on Hulu. You've seen this one with Rachel Beck Adams? I loved it.

Okay. I thought it was really good, but it was one of those movies that if it, I looked at it It was like an hour and 52 minutes or something. And I thought like, it's just a little long for this kind of movie. Yeah. If they would have trimmed 15 minutes off of a movie, it would have fantastic. You're right, but you're quibbling. But also, I saw the movie. I am quibbling.

I saw the movie in the theater and it rocked hard. Boy, what? Just a weird, weird movie, but very, like, enjoyable. It was, it was bizarre. If you don't like that movie, you don't like movies. That was a great time. My wife is usually a fall asleep in the couch kind of person when we're watching stuff, and she's like, I'm staying up for this.

Like, I want to see the end of this. I really want to know what happens. It was very weird, but in a, I guess, a delightful kind of way. All right. You talked about your friends and neighbors last week, how you're still into it. I watched the most recent one. They did a funeral episode. I love, this show is so good.

It's too much damn time with kids, Ben. I have no time for TV anymore. I haven't seen past the first episode. I can't believe that it's still. I thought it would be a one-season show and that it would get bad. But they did a funeral episode that was so realistic about what an actual funeral is and how it plays out and how awkward it is in dealing with your family and people saying the wrong stuff.

And they nailed the funeral perfectly. Chris was telling me, Chris was telling me yesterday. He said, did you see the funeral scene yet? It's so good. Yes. I can't believe how good this show still is. You know, I agree with you. I thought it was a one and done.

Isn't it weird or funny how we just like, oh, yeah, we just watch TV shows on Apple now? Right. It is. I know. And then you look at it and I was like, oh, there's another actor in their own TV show movie on Apple I never heard of? Cool.

I watched the, drama, an 824 movie. Okay, I was interested in this one. So the drama is by the same guy that did Dream Scenario. And the progression of the movies, in my opinion, was very similar in the sense that the, maybe the last third wasn't, I didn't love the last third in either of the movies. I never watched Dream scenario. Okay, you should.

At least, it's worth it just for the first half. Okay. So the drama is a great premise. Robert Patterson and Zenday are getting married. and they are doing like a wine tasting with like their two best friends, you know, like prepping for the wedding in terms of like what they're going to, what wine they're going to serve. And one of them says to the group, hey, let's play a fun game.

What's the worst thing you've ever done? And they all go around and Zendaya says something and the movie comes to a screeching halt where they're all like, what? And whatever, people might like. might not love how it ends. But whatever. It was, it was definitely...

Oh, is that a theater movie for you? Or is that it's on streaming now? No, it's on, uh, what did it? Oh, I rented it. But it'll be, it'll be streaming soon. My type of movie. I enjoyed it.

All right. I'm in. Okay. All right. That's it. I'm coming to New York tomorrow. I will be in town. I will be doing the compounded friends with you guys this week.

Visit week free. So it bends on the competent friends. We are having a, a party for our Porterhouse launch with a, the momentum strategy that is for Rittaltzworth clients only that we spoke about. That's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of people in time for that one. You've got your book. We've got...

This is like the busiest month of my life. And it's great. I love it. We're releasing new stuff with the firm. I got a new book out. Please go buy it. I'm going to do some sort of giveaway and ask the compound. Sign copies if people want to watch this week.

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I'm trying to remind myself that, we will be sick again, metaphorically speaking. And, you know, things are good right now. That's what I'm trying to remind people. Like, the bad stuff will happen. It's, it has to. Pretty good, enjoy the good times by they last.

That's right. All right, animal spirits at the compound news.com. Thank you so much for everybody for listening, for sending emails. Thank you to Duncan and the production team. We will see you next time.